


Days of the Future

by Crimson_Phantom



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Other, X-Men: First Class References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:59:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Phantom/pseuds/Crimson_Phantom
Summary: Azazel confronts Eric. Set shortly after the events form First Class.





	Days of the Future

Eric was at Shaw's desk in the control room of the ship, his new brotherhood group had been here a day as he was getting a grasp of what he was dealing with. The room dimly lit except a lamp above his head illuminating the books, maps and reports Sebastian kept. 

As Eric studied these documents he felt the heckles rise on his neck as if he were being watched... A predatory tension filled the air. 

He didn't look up from the papers as he muttered flatly. "My... If your eyes were anymore searing I would have third degree burns by now." He said without turning to look at the man looming at the doorway just outside his view. "Now are you going to ask me the questions that cause your stare to be so annoying?" He turned to glare at the doorway In the darkness and after a moment the man appeared. Seeming to bleed through the shadows as his red skin emerged amidst his black suit and hair. His green eyes piercingly vibrant as his long whip like tail lashed tenaciously behind him, annoyed he was spotted so easily. 

Though Instead of answering Eric he makes his way to the far corner and leans against the wall to stare at him more. It was an intense, deep gaze not even Eric could maintain eye contact with long. The striking looking mutant, not that he was even certain he was one, then responded. 

"No questions. Simply watching you. Studying every move, how you say..." Azazel answered in thick Russian that almost butchers the English he knew. Tilting his head the Russian's eyes narrowed unblinking as his tone leveled flatly. "You kill my commander and I haven't decided vhat to do yet. I am not dog in need of master. I do not follow blindly. Ae make my own vill."

"Well then you must be blind or ignorant..." Eric chuckled making the Russian furious, showing his confidence in his abilities Eric turned his back to the dangerous man which Azazel noted curiously. 

Unbeknownst to the teleporter; however, was that Eric had already sized him up when he entered the room. Azazel would be a challenge to bring down but Eric detected traces of scrap metal imbedded deep in his back and shoulder from an old war and was well prepared to send it on a fatal journey if need be. He continued his appraisal dryly. 

"You followed Shaw or rather you knew what he was and was okay with it which I find all the more unsettling why you are still here other than revenge or your loyalty is that much of a snake." Eric glared over his shoulder to mirror Azazel's harsh exchange. "I don't trust you either, you haven't given me a reason to... yet."

Azazel blinked. A little taken back then snorted air through his nose with an angry huff. "I brought you back here vith the rest of the group vhere I could have dropped you off in the middle of the ocean or simply disappeared and left you on the island... vith your friends..." He spat the last a little sharply with a guttural expression on his face, Eric raised an eyebrow and quirked his lips glancing at Azazel only shortly. 

"Seems you've been dwelling on that a lot..." He remarked though not with much interest as he toyed with the buttons on his cuffs. 

Azazel half nodded, raising his chin proudly. "And I am not like him... Shaw... though I did believe same as he in some vays like a new and better vorld..." He paused another minute as he took a deep breathe and mellowed his seething temper. "I am not bad person...." He said matter of factly. 

"That's good." Eric only commented as the red man's harshness seem to soften, even if it was just barely. Blinking once, he swallowed and took his piercing gaze to the floor. 

"I'm not exactly a... how do you say..." He struggled with his English as his hands seemed to fight for words. "Eh... good looking person... I stay hidden all the time. Life vas not easy, I stole to survive and vas always moving. People vould chase me, spit and beat me if I didn't get avay." Azazel's brow furrowed as a deep seeded hate blazed in his gaze that had narrowed to two thin lines, he barely spoke above a whisper. "I got captured and held under a church once before I knew I could teleport... they done things to me these Christian people ae vas there for days... I probably vould have died down there but the intense vant to be free and panic caused me to teleport for the first time... and I killed them all... I hated humans then for how they treated me."

Eric's eyes softened considerably, he turned to look at the man still firmly planted in the shadows. "We all had a difficult past. I'm sorry to hear you went through that... but am honored you told me. That my friend, is trust."

"...Da..." Azazel half nodded, his eyes glanced up just briefly as he shift uneasily like maybe he was embarrassed to have been so forthcoming. "It was about that time I met Emma and Shaw... he showed me there vas more like me and it vas the first time I felt accepted. Even cared for..." Azazel seemed to have more words he wanted say but stopped. Maybe his limited vocabulary stopped him or his willingness to either way he fell silent and just stood there. Face stoic and eyes blankly fixed to the ground as he leaned against the wall he seemed to wish to melt into. 

Eric tilted his head curiously, a sadness in his hooded eyes. Azazel looked about as lost as he felt. In truth Eric was terrified, a jostle of nerves that he was now looked at as a leader and was afraid he had taken on too much and would screw things up. He didn't know what he was going to do. What any of them was going to do...

Their worlds were turned upside down in a series of bad decisions that couldn't be undone. 

"You know... Shaw was only using you for your abilities... You were a valuable asset to him and he would say or do anything to make you stay since you come and go at will."

Eric seemed to regret saying this as the harshness returned back instantly in Azazel's heated glare at his eyes snapped back up. "You think I didn't know that? I am not idiot. I said it made 'feel like it' not that it was. Give some, get some." Azazel meditated on his words confused, he raised a brow. "Like scratch back, get back scratched?"

Eric chuckled. "I know what you mean and I'm sorry if I came off crass... here. Come sit." He emptied the papers off the chair beside him. Pulling the drawer out he snagged a bottle of malt bourbon he found rustling in the study earlier and set it on the desk. "Unless you prefer to stand there in the corner and watch me drink, if so be my guest." He took the cork off the bottle. 

Azazel looked at Eric curiously, tilting his head to the side as he studied the man then the bottle in his hand then the chair beside him. He shifted uneasily but pulled himself from the wall and approached the man his former commander had trained him to look on as his enemy. 

Both on the aspect he was against their cause but also a Jew....

Not that Azazel cared much for the latter. He understood too well the hatefulness of seeking someone out because of appearance and ignorant reasoning for doing it. 

Eric watched the man approach. Cruel and striking as the red man was, the Russian bore a sinister grace about him as he moved. So light, so soundless as he walked, like the pads of a cats paw. His tail gracefully curled and swayed side to side like it weighted nothing. For a moment Eric wondered if he truly was human...

As Azazel sat down next to him and took the bottle turning it up to his lips. His tail wrapped around the chair leg as if untrusting of it's stability and Eric couldn't help but look at it, it was a curious thing. 

Pulling the bottle from his mouth he wiped the moisture off his lips with the back of his hand and offered it back to Eric. 

It wasn't exactly a polite way to drink but Azazel didn't seem to have manners and he though it would be rude to ask Azazel to go upstairs and retrieve some glasses. 

"Now... you seem to have questions for me, comrade..." The man said bringing Eric from his obvious gaze to his tail. With a smirk that only used half his face but was broad enough his canines peeked through, Azazel chuckled and lift his tail to curl around the back of the chair. 

Eric smiled and took the bottle. "Sorry... I didn't mean..." He blushed slightly and pulled the bottle toward his lips then paused. Azazel's eyes stared unblinking until he finally drank from it. Azazel then smiled a genuine smile. It was top shelf bourbon and heated his throat and chest pleasantly.

"Da, it is okay. I am used to stares even by mutants..." Azazel smiled yet not with his eyes, his voice then faded softly to to a rumble. "Vhen I was young boy I didn't and vould vash myself raw trying to vash the red avay so I could be normal. I vanted this and to cut off my tail so people vould stop calling me devil."

Eric blinked as his brow intensed. "Azazel that's... that's so sad..."

Azazel shrugged, "eh. I vas confused child. Now these thing define me and I like them, very much..." He turned to look at his own tail and with a smug smile. 

Eric changed the topic not wanting to share his own childhood scars by drawing the attention of his tail. "It's so long, your tail, and you carry it like its nothing." Eric handed the bottle back to Azazel, pointing to the appendage with his chin. "Does it ever get in the way?"

A deep chuckle rumbled in Azazel's chest and he turned up the bottle and faced the table. "Not normally. I tripped over it drunk once, that's how I got this." He learned forward and pointed to his cheek at a pair of jagged scars. "I fell into a glass table. I don't tell girls that though." He smirked and offered the bottle back to Eric. 

"Oh yeah?" Eric took the bottle and downed another swallow. "How about the one you got over your eye?"

Azazel's mood changed quickly and his tail flicked once before coiling back around the chair again. "That one vas different... Before I met Shaw when..." He didn't finish. "I don't care to talk about it vithout becoming angry." He turned toward the desk, his face back to a stoic harshness. "I hate humans, they are so cruel. I do not know vhat I am doing now and neither do the others and it makes me feel uneasy." He jumped to another topic obviously. 

"You are still human, Azazel only a genetically evolved one."

"Eh..." Azazel tutted as he tilted his head slightly and crooked his jaw as he appraised himself in a small mirror on the wall. "...I am not even sure of this, how am I to know I am not like you but demon? I don't look human..." 

"Because religious people fucked you up into thinking you were and you gotta get over that. I've seen some weird mutants and I guarantee you're not the weirdest." Eric downed another swallow as he stared at Azazel's tail again. "Admittedly one way up on that list and yes you have an unfortunate resemblance of the devil but who's to not say mutants were not present in those times and the paintings were inspired by them? There may not even be angels or demons at all but were mutants mistaken." Eric offered the bottle to Azazel as the Russian stared at him with an intrigued curiosity. "Besides, you followed me off the coast, so did they so we must share a common desire in knowing what we're doing."

Azazel blinked his mind still considering Eric's theory that he hadn't thought about himself. He then turned back to the desk as he took the bottle. "They thought they had no other choice." He said quietly and tilted it back. "Staying behind with the mutants just fighting them or leaving with you and I."

Eric considered this a moment and also the fact Azazel did not group himself with his team members but had said 'you and I' "Then I offer them one now... Free will as you said." Eric said a bit too eager perhaps it was the drink as with Azazel was more tolerant to it or he was genuinely sincere. The Russian tilted his head curiously to Eric who took the bottle and continued. "If they wish to leave they may. No one is being forced to stay with me including you..." Azazel continued to stare at him curiously, almost with concern, as Eric added taking another drink as the bottle was getting empty. "I imagine Shaw would not have been so generous..." He said flatly. 

Azazel stared at him a moment longer then took the bottle offered him which was near empty and drank the remaining liquor. He sighed and answered gruffly. "Nyet, he vould not have. He vould have seen the vant to leave as treachery." Azazel paused to turn and stared down to the desk and empty bottle. "He vould have tracked them down and killed them or had me to do it." 

Eric blinked and furrowed his brows, deeply concerned. "And you... would have done something like that?..."

Azazel stared at him yet through him, "I follow my orders..."

That dead expression and emotionless response made Eric wonder if he had before. What Shaw may have ordered him to do, what he had done before or what he could do now. It's what made Azazel so dangerous, his almost feral nature that he could turn on people so easily by mere direction to. 

Perhaps eventually he could persuade Charles to read Azazel's mind and see exactly what he had done or had happen to him if even he could. Azazel may sense it since he did live with a telepath for so long... and it might make Azazel turn on them all...

Eventually Eric would come to realize this blank stare was Azazel's way of shutting down to deal with emotional situations he didn't know how to respond to other than obey the order...

Yet he snaps out of this and blinks looking at Eric calmly. "If you tell them this they vill leave, they fear you since you killed Shaw and they worked for him then you vill have no one."

"Including you?..."

Azazel furrowed his brow, his lip twitched. "Azazel fears nothing, not even death. That's vhat makes Azazel dangerous. I come and go as I please..." He paused briefly to lower his guard. "But the others... Janos fears you and doesn't trust you he vill leave and Angel will follow Janos. The blue girl vill go back to your brother's-"

"He is not by brother." Eric answered more quickly and aggressively than he needed to, to which seeing the expression on Azazel's face he pulled back quietly adding. "Sorry.... we're not brothers..."

"You're... friend then..." Azazel stared at him curiously then adding. "But they vill all leave vitch leaves you no one."

"Except you." Eric added, " you are not including yourself with them?"

Azazel tilted his head at an arch as if considering it then with a sigh he muttered. "I vill stay if you vish me to... I am not attached to any of them, they are not my friends."

Eric shook his head. "It's not up to me, it's your decision."

Azazel stared at Eric for a good ten seconds, that same piercing steely gaze he bore through him when he entered the room then took his eyes away and to the table. Eric saw his shoulders tense. His jaw crooked to one side as he exhaled and half-shrugged. "I haven't a place to go and no one to go vith, I keep to my own. They have each other. This is all I know..." The devilish looking man said softly which surprised Eric. "I vant not be alone again not truly. It is hard... If you vill have me und give me a job ae vill do eet." When he seemed to get emotional under stress his accent began to butcher his words more and more. 

Eric actually felt pity for him now... something he though he never could. Was that the only reason why he stayed with Shaw, because he didn't want to be alone again? A creature as intimidating as Azazel, a cold killer no less, was afraid of being alone and possibly in the same situation as he was before Shaw?

Eric leaned into the man, he didn't know why. Without Charles now perhaps he felt empty as well. "Surely you have somewhere you want to go if not to stay here..." Eric put a hand on Azazel's shoulder and felt the unusually high body heat he gave off seep through his clothing. He knew Shaw had control of everything and was certain the man had nothing. "I can give you assets if you want to start over..."

"Khorosho..." Azazel growled Russian dangerously as he shook Eric off. "I don't need your charity, if I vant something I take and go." Azazel snarled and nearly knocked over the chair as he stood up. "I told you, before I met Shaw vhere ae live and I vish to not go back." His voice cracked as he quickly turned around. Eric thought he seen fear in Azazel's eyes, was that why he turned around? Eric responded quietly. 

"You wouldn't have to go back there you're more than welcome to stay here but not just for creature comforts or out of fear. I'm not like Shaw either, you have to want to be here and fight for my cause. The other is not loyalty, it is dependence and it doesn't make for a good team."

"On the contrary creature comforts can make someone very loyal in my country where nothing is obtained as easily as is here." Azazel advised allowing his metallic dialect to soften to a quiet, velvety tone. "This loyally you speak of is something that is built not obtained any how and Azazel can provide for myself but I have grown fond of sleeping in the same place every night..." He barely looked up as he crooked a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Eric looked at him deeply as he does this, Azazel was obviously strong with a hardened guard but inside a tragic, damaged soul. 

Exactly what he had been through Eric could only imagine but he had a good idea given his own past but with Azazel his fierce looks gave him away where Eric could easily blend in. Even Mystique as striking as she was could change skins to blend in. This was all Azazel knew. Looking at his scarred face Eric could imagine his body was rittled with jagged scars and breaks from all sorts of experiences Azazel cared not to share either before he met Shaw or during. Eric considered it wise not to press these curiosities and merely answered. "You can stay here if you wish. I am certainly not running you off, I could really use you even if it were just you and I remaining."

Azazel's smirk did reach his eyes now as he blinked and allowed his features to soften with relief. "I would be honored to, comrade." He said quietly. 

Eric smiled back. He would have to learn Russian and Azazel would have to brush up on his English but they broke a barrier tonight. 

Even if it was just the two of them the possibilities were endless for a teleporter and a telekinesis and they could always find new recruits but right now he was thinking too far ahead. This was the first day to their new lives. All of them. 

They could do anything.

More than you might think.


End file.
